Electrospun chitosan-graft-poly (ɛ-caprolactone)/poly (ɛ-caprolactone) nanofibrous scaffolds for retinal tissue engineering

Abstract

A promising therapy for retinal diseases is to employ biodegradable scaffolds to deliver retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) for repairing damaged or diseased retinal tissue. In the present study, cationic chitosan-graft-poly(ɛ-caprolactone)/polycaprolactone (CS-PCL/PCL) hybrid scaffolds were successfully prepared by electrospinning. Characterization of the obtained nanofibrous scaffolds indicated that zeta-potential, fiber diameter, and the content of amino groups on their surface were closely correlated with the amount of CS-PCL in CS-PCL/PCL scaffolds. To assess the cell–scaffold interaction, mice RPCs (mRPCs) were cultured on the electrospun scaffolds for 7 days. In-vitro proliferation assays revealed that mRPCs proliferated faster on the CS-PCL/PCL (20/80) scaffolds than the other electrospun scaffolds. Scanning electron microscopy and the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction results showed that mRPCs grown on CS-PCL/PCL (20/80) scaffolds were more likely to differentiate towards retinal neurons than those on PCL scaffolds. Taken together, these results suggest that CS-PCL/PCL(20/80) scaffolds have potential application in retinal tissue engineering.

Keywords:

• electrospun
• retinal progenitor cells
• proliferation
• differentiation
• tissue engineering

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Henry Klassen and Dr Michael J Young for original provenance of the murine RPCs. The research work was supported by Shanghai Municipality Commission for Science and Technology (09PJ1407200, 0952nm05300), International Corporation Project of Shanghai Municipality Commission (09540709000, 10410710000), Education Commission of Shanghai (11YZ47), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81070737), Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (S30205).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.